Obsessed theater doctor Friedrich Hohner (Boris Karloff) murders Marcellina, his opera star girl friend when she rejects him for being too controlling. Ten years later a new singer, Angela Klatt (Susanna Foster) is the new big thing, with a voice that sounds exactly like the dead star’s. This is too much for Hohner, who hypnotizes her to take her voice away. It’s up to her fiancé, Franz Munzer (Turhan Bey), and Marcellina’s old dresser Luise (Gale Sondergaard) to save Angela and her voice.
Universal had made artistic, A-horror pictures in the 1930s, but had switched their horror to mostly lower budgeted B-pictures intended for teens in the ’40s. These could be fun, if not brilliant. So when Universal tried to class-up their horror, they did it in all the wrong ways, going not for art, but respectability. Their biggest push in that direction had happened a year earlier, when they spent real money on beautiful sets and costumes, and got technicolor firing on all cylinders for a remake their silent melodrama, The Phantom of the Opera. The result was hardly high art, but it looked good, and got four Oscar nominations, and two wins, (for that look, not for the story). It made money, if not as much as they hoped, so they planned to do it again with a sequel, but they couldn’t get all the cast to return, so jiggered around their script to make The Climax, a mixture of Phantom of the Opera and Trilby/Svengali. They even found a play they could claim it was based on. The Climax isn’t much good, but you could talk about it at all the best parties. It received an Oscar nomination for art direction, which is amusing since it uses the same sets, props, and costumes that Phantom of the Opera did. Two noms for one job.
It is the plot and characters that let it all down, though I’d call the director lax as well. The slight story limps along without building tension, slowed down by long musical breaks. I don’t mind a bit of opera here and there, but if I wanted this much, with full numbers, I’d go to an opera.
Angela is a major problem with that tension. There’s only a few minutes when she isn’t either singing or under Hohner’s spell, so we never get to know her. Why should I care if she’s in danger? More, why should I care if she has a big career, and the film clearly wants me to care. I can’t say I had much interest in her relationship with Franz. Again, her having no personality is a problem, but also, to move the story along, Franz acts more concerned about her career than about her life. Making him a money-grubbing weasel might have been interesting, but they didn’t. He just has really misplaced relationship goals. And the villain doesn’t work either. I have a hard time figuring out why they didn’t fire Hohner years ago. There’s obviously something wrong with him. Unfortunately, for a mad scientist, there isn’t enough wrong with him. But I suppose a flamboyant doctor wouldn’t have been classy. This is Karloff’s least engaging villain of the Golden Age. Luise is yet another character that doesn’t work, even with Sondergaard in fine form. She spent 10 years of her life as acting as Hohner’s house keeper. That’s the kind of thing that could use some setup, showing us how Luise loved Marcellina, but that would have required some time needed for yet another song that has nothing to do with the story. I should note that Luise is the worst investigator in the world. Hohner keeps Marcellina’s dead body in a very conspicuously locked room. I’d have thought in 10 years, she might have taken that as a clue.
This was Karloff’s first film after returning from his successful stage run in Arsenic And Old Lace. It’s a sad return. Phantom of the Opera isn’t really horror, nor is this. Horror has an edge. This is soft and squishy. I feel I’m being tough on such a beautiful movie, but it has nothing besides its color, sets, and costumes. Audiences didn’t go for it either. The Phantom remake made money, but people weren’t enthusiastic about the excessive musical numbers and general lightening of it. This had those same issues, without being Phantom of the Opera. What’s the point?